Paranoia Raises it’s Ugly Head (among other things)

If you’ve read one of my posts lately, you know I’m in the midst of a hypomanic episode, that I’m post nine day break-up with DSB (and happy about it), and that I haven’t been sleeping.  Oh, and that I had a groundbreaking grocery shopping experience yesterday.  That pretty much sums up the last 10 days.

Today has not been a very good day.  My thoughts are racing, I’m irritable, spacey and dazed, can’t concentrate, and highly emotional.  I’m sure there’s more, but those are the highlights.  I somehow made it through three hours of work and then was so relieved when I was asked to leave early and do the bank run.  Leave early?  Go to the bank?  Well, yes, yes I can!

I had my appointment at 2:30pm, and Dr. Wizard (yes, he’s a wizard…magic stuff he does) really seemed baffled.  And then I told him about poor sleeping pattern for the past month and then almost no sleep the past week and that other life-altering event, and it all made sense to him.  He thinks the best thing to do to work me out of this hypomanic hell, is to get me sleeping again.  He prescribed flurazepam, which is a benzo, like the  clonazepam I am already taking.

I have a list of instructions from him, so my addled brain doesn’t OD or take something I’m not supposed to.  I’m supposed to take 10 mg of olanzapine (Zyprexa) twice a day, plus before bedtime.  I’m to stay off Ritalin until I have had “five normal days.”  I’m to take 1-2 flurazepams at bedtime.  I am also to start taking one of my three Geodon pills in the morning.  I’m also not to take any clonazepam in close concordance with the flurazepam.  I think that’s all, but like I said, I have a list.

Ok, I’ll try it.  I’m game.  I’m ready to feel better, and Dr. Wizard has yet to completely fail me.  I haven’t felt this horrible in a really long time, so I’m actually pretty desperate.

And on top of hypomania, we have rampant paranoia.  Everyone hates me, everyone is talking about me, I’m getting on everyone’s nerves, no one cares that I’m feeling bad, I’m being rejected by society as a whole.

Yep.  At least I know it’s paranoia and not fact.  It’s hard to stay grounded right now, and I’m trying.  I keep hugging my mom and patting Rock on his sunburned shoulder and I would have hugged Blue Cat (the artist formerly known as Catfish) if I thought I could get away with it.

There is a big fish fry at my mom’s tomorrow, and earlier in the week I was looking forward to it, even excited about it.  Now, I’m not sure I’ll go.  There are going to be a lot of people there and I just don’t know if I can handle it.  If I can fake being okay enough to pass.  If I even want to try and fake it, because I’ve been doing a pretty poor job at faking it anyway.

I just don’t know.  What I’d really like to do is work from home for the next two weeks (which is obviously impossible when you work in a bait shop) and just spend a lot of time playing with Kizzie.  I have food to eat, plenty of ice (can’t drink anything without it), great company (Kizzer!!!), and there are phones and computers if I feel the need to reach out and touch someone.

I feel very alone, and at the same time want to be alone, want to be left alone, but am actually starving for positive attention.  Does that make any sense at all?  I can’t help but thinking negative things when I am trying to talk to someone and I can’t help thinking that I am being judged and sized up.  I can’t help thinking that I can’t stop thinking and that I can’t stop thinking at such a rapid pace.

I can’t stop thinking about how bad I feel and about how I am raining on everyone’s parade by feeling bad.  It has been a long time since I have had an episode, and it’s like I had forgotten how absolutely awful they are.  I just have all these emotions and yet I have no emotions.  It’s insanity, and yes, Goddess of Mindfulness, I know I need to stop being so black and white.  This or that.  On the dialectic.

Goddess of Mindfulness, I think the past five months of taking care of DSB were apparent competence and I wish I would have figured that out sooner.

For those not in the know, apparent competence is basically:

Apparent competence refers to outwardly being able to cope and seeming in control, while inwardly being completely lost, or mentally unwell. It does not necessarily have the ability to span all situations however, people may be able to shake off depression one day and but not the next. It is inconsistent. It can be dangerous as you as well as others may fail to recognize what it happening for what it is, false competence, until it is too late and things blow up in a crisis. Since others cannot always understand or appreciate apparent competence, cries for help are often ignored and people are assumed to be incorrectly “quite well” which further complicates the risks that are associated with this situation. 

This is an excerpt of a blog article that can be found here.

It’s a DBT thing.  Anyway.  That’s me when I was working full-time, doing the social worker-type thing and that is often me, in many different situations.  I fall into apparent competence all too often, and I should have recognized it sooner.

But I didn’t, and now here I am.  Wanting to be all alone but desperate for someone to reach out.  This black and white, this dialectic…I don’t know how much more of it I can take.  I’m not saying I’m giving up, because I’m not, but I wish there was some magic fix to all this bullshit.

My apologies for the ranting and raving and crying all over my blog post.  I needed to let all that out, and that’s what I do here.  This is RosieSmrtiePants, off to dinner and TV with Kizzie, over and out.